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Our Client, the Crash, and Her Injuries
My client, Lane, is a small business owner who lives just across the South Carolina line in Tryon, North Carolina. At the time of the crash, she was 34.
On July 21, 2023, at around 10:50 p.m., Lane drove her recently deceased grandmother’s car home from working at a business partner’s house. She was on a dark rural highway in Spartanburg County- Highway 11. The at-fault driver, called the defendant, approached from the opposite direction. The defendant crossed over the center line, driving on the wrong side of the road, and slammed basically head-on into the front end of Lane’s car. The impact was devastating. Everyone was lucky to be alive.
Both Lane and a witness on the scene described the harrowing reason Lane had no time to react: the defendant drove a black car with the headlights off.
The defendant was arrested for driving under the influence. A blood test revealed an alcohol level of .126, well over the legal limit of .08.
Lane suffered a badly broken right ankle, vertebral body compression fractures at T7 and L3, and a broken left hand. She required two separate operations the same night to fix her ankle. Her spinal fractures left her in a back brace, and she needed a leg boot and walker to get around.
Like her physical problems, her legal problems were only beginning. She came to me for help because we’d represented her beloved grandmother in the past- the same one whose car she drove in the crash.
Three Massive Problems We Overcame for Our Client
Lane rightly worried she wouldn’t get an adequate settlement for her severe injuries. Her case was by no means easy due to some tough, unexpected legal obstacles. Here’s how we solved three massive problems for Lane to get her a great settlement.
Massive Problem 1: The Insurance Company Basically Claimed Lane Stole the Car
At first, insurance company negotiations were far too easy. The defendant had only $25,000 in liability coverage, the state minimum. Lane’s medical bills dwarfed that. The defendant’s insurance paid so fast that I didn’t even charge her a fee for securing that settlement.
The massive problem came from, of all places, the insurance company for the car Lane drove. Luckily, her grandmother had the wisdom to purchase a policy called underinsurance, which can be used to pay a bigger settlement when there’s not enough liability insurance to cover it. And that insurance company had a lot of exposure – up to $350,000.
The insurance company responded by promptly denying the claim, never mind their policyholder’s beloved grandchild suffered serious injuries from a drunk driver. They alleged Lane drove the car without authorization. Basically, the insurance company claimed that she stole the car from the grandmother she adored, who adored her.
How we overcame the insurance company’s claim that Lane didn’t have the authorization to drive the car: I presented the truth from an independent witness. I contacted the personal representative of her grandmother’s estate. The personal representative is appointed by the probate court to officially handle all legal and financial affairs of the estate. In her will, Lane’s grandmother had named a local accountant to serve as personal representative. He made it perfectly clear that Lane had full authorization to use the car on the night of the crash. Faced with this unavoidable truth, the insurance company slunk off and licked its wounds, but I still felt them giving us the stank eye, which gave me more concern for Lane’s next massive problem.
Massive Problem 2: Lane’s Blood Alcohol Level Was Above the Legal Limit
Lane’s emergency room medical records reflected a blood alcohol level of .16, twice the legal limit. Hiding that was no option. It’s dishonest, and we face the facts plus the medical records were riddled with repeated references to it.
How we overcame it: we stated the facts and used the law. In South Carolina, a car accident victim’s alcohol or drug consumption doesn’t come into evidence unless there’s proof it contributed to the crash, under a 2010 court of appeals case called Johnson v. Horry County Solid Waste Authority. I laid out how this evidence would never come into court, pointing out these facts from a highly detailed investigation I pursued:
- There was no evidence Lane was at fault. She was squarely within her lane. She couldn’t see the defendant because the defendant drove a black car without headlights in the dark of night.
- I spoke to the fireman who personally tended to her at the scene. He recalled no concern she was impaired.
- EMTs who tended her in the closely confined space of the ambulance noted no evidence of impairment. Her mental and neurological status was normal.
- The medical records from the ER contain no evidence she appeared impaired. They describe her as alert, awake, and oriented to person, place, time, and situation, with normal speech.
- When a witness checked on her at the scene, he made no mention of witnessing signs of impairment, as he did with the defendant.
- I interviewed the last person she spoke with not long before the crash, her business partner’s husband. They spoke for 10 to 15 minutes. He had no concern she was impaired or even drinking.
- Hospital blood is notoriously inaccurate, unlike the highly controlled scientific testing the defendant’s blood underwent. I backed this up with a copy of a scientific medical journal article on the subject.
Faced with this argument, the insurance company never made a peep about it. The next question was, how much of a settlement could she get?
South Carolina drunk driving car accident victims can exceed the insurance limits and get a bigger settlement.
A South Carolina Supreme Court case called Poole v. GEICO allows victims of severe South Carolina car accidents to recover a settlement for injuries using property damage underinsurance. It’s basically limited to cases where punitive damages are warranted. I knew this wasn’t a given in Lane’s case due to her first two massive problems. I had to prove her unquestionable claim for a tremendous amount of punitive damages. Doing that required negotiating with the prosecutors in the DUI case to get the full police investigation file, including police car and body camera videos. Once I secured an agreement to do that, the real work began.
My painstaking review of the evidence revealed these factors that could cause a heavy-handed punitive damages award, which I pointed out in our demand letter to the insurance companies requesting a settlement for their entire coverage:
- I sent the insurance companies copies of the investigation file, including the videos from the scene and my summary of the videos. I can’t tell you what a powerful message it sends to an insurance company that you, as the lawyer, know what’s in those tapes and reports.
- The defendant lied about causing the crash. Fire department personnel noted that the defendant has “changed her story three or four times.”
- The defendant’s “defense,” which she told repeatedly on the videos, was that Lane pulled out unexpectedly from a nearby apartment complex. I sent a Google Earth map of the scene to show that no such apartment complex exists.
- Other witnesses describe the defendant’s obvious drunkenness, including an EMT who describes the defendant as stumbling and slurring.
- At the scene, the defendant is belligerent, combative, defiant, sneering, blinded by drunken hallucinations and misguided self-righteousness. During the first field sobriety test, she proudly proclaimed, “I’ve done this before.”
- The defendant exhibited classic signs of intoxication. She smelled like alcohol, slurred her speech, and had glossy eyes.
- On the walk and turn test, the defendant couldn’t follow the most basic instructions, like when to start. She became “non-compliant and began to argue,” refusing to finish.
- The defendant’s blood toxicology report came back from the state crime lab with a blood alcohol level of .126. The blood was drawn about 4 1/2 hours after the crash. I used this to argue at the time of the crash, her blood alcohol content was likely dramatically higher.
Not long after receiving this information, the insurance company settled for their entire limits: $250,000 for injuries and $100,000 for property damage, totaling $350,000.
I still wasn’t done. Lane also had underinsurance on her car at home. Even though it wasn’t involved in the crash, that coverage could still be used. But since it was a North Carolina policy, I couldn’t get the property damage limit for that. I was able to get every penny North Carolina law allowed under that policy for an additional $75,000.
While this was a victory worth celebrating, Lane still had one more massive problem.
Massive Problem 3: Enormous Medical Bills With No Health Insurance
When I started negotiations, Lane’s bills were already over $127,000. That could have eaten up a huge amount of her settlement. Most of them were incurred at the hospital.
How we overcame it: I negotiated with the hospital billing office and other providers to reduce her bills to a total of around $81,000. Lane got the money I saved her- about $46,000- in her pocket from the settlement.
Lane’s Recovery and One Lesson Learned
Lane was thrilled with her settlement. She wisely took her check to the investment advisor her grandmother introduced her to before passing away.
There’s one thing to learn from Lane’s settlement. When you’re seriously injured in a South Carolina car accident, there’s no substitute for an experienced, hardworking car accident attorney. I helped Lane achieve a fantastic result because I:
- Know the law,
- Thoroughly investigated to find all available insurance policies to pay, confirmed she didn’t steal the car so she could get her grandmother’s underinsurance, and proved she wasn’t driving drunk while the defendant obviously was, and
- Used my experience to boldly and meaningfully point out the facts to maximize her settlement.
It was hard workwith long hours, and there were times Lane and I worried about the outcome, but overall, it was a joy to help this kind, seriously hurt young lady achieve a powerful settlement for the suffering she endured at the hands of a heartless drunk driver.